Tour Mars Via NASA’s Amazing Image Composite

NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover has been sending back some incredible images from the Red Planet. Now, using a composite of nearly 900 images taken, you can get a sense of what it’s like to stand on Mars.

NASA released the composite – made up of more than 1.3 billion pixels – along with additional imagery at its website. It’s from the “Rocknest” site, where the rover scooped up dust and sand samples.

Curiosity used three cameras to take the component images on several different days last fall. CBS News reports the rover “used its telephoto camera of Curiosity’s Mast Camera instrument, supplemented with 21 frames from the Mastcam’s wider-angle camera and 25 black-and-white frames — mostly of the rover itself — from the Navigation Camera. It was produced by the Multiple-Mission Image Processing Laboratory (MIPL) at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.”

The interactive tool also allows users to explore the surrounding area near Rocknest in more detail – zooming in on places like “Mount Sharp” or a nearby rock that looks remarkably like a bird.

The NASA Mars imagery composite was Michelle Stark’s featured “Click Pick” Wednesday on WHNT News 19 This Morning. For more cool stuff from the web, along with apps and viral videos, join us weekdays from 4:30 to 7:00 a.m.